This dissertation reconstructs the history of Alorese, an Austronesian language spoken in east Indonesia, by combining perspectives from oral history and historical linguistics. The social history... Show moreThis dissertation reconstructs the history of Alorese, an Austronesian language spoken in east Indonesia, by combining perspectives from oral history and historical linguistics. The social history of the Alorese people is reconstructed through migration stories based on narrative accounts from fourteen Alorese villages. The historical linguistic study of Alorese begins with a grammatical description of the Alorese dialect spoken in northeast Pantar. This is followed by a study of Alorese historical phonology, in which varieties of Alorese are compared with varieties of its sister language, Western Lamaholot. This dissertation also examines lexical borrowing from the Alor-Pantar (Papuan) languages into Alorese and vice versa. Based on a combined investigation of lingusitic and oral history, this dissertation proposes that the homeland of the Alorese people may have been in northeast Pantar. The study of Alorese historical phonology results in the bottom-up reconstruction of the sounds of Proto-Alorese and its vocabulary, and the establishment of Alorese as a subgroup of the Flores-Lembata languages, the next higher group within Malayo-Polynesian. In addition, the investigation of loanwords also provides insight into the history of contact between the Alorese and the speakers of the Alor-Pantar (Papuan) languages in the Alor archipelago. Show less
This dissertation provides a thorough review of the words belonging to the oldest layer of Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic and answers the question of how these words were adapted to the Proto... Show moreThis dissertation provides a thorough review of the words belonging to the oldest layer of Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic and answers the question of how these words were adapted to the Proto-Slavic accentual system. The dissertation contains a corpus of 78 words that can be regarded as Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic. The discussion of the etymology of these words is followed by a comprehensive linguistic analysis of the material, focussing on formal clues for establishing the Germanic donor language of the Slavic forms. It was found that, contrary to earlier ideas, West Germanic loanwords are more numerous in Proto-Slavic than Gothic loanwords. It turned out that there is even a small number of loanwords from Low German in Proto-Slavic. Research into the accentuation of the loanwords has resulted in the establishment of a distribution of the words over the three Proto-Slavic accent paradigms (a), (b) and (c). It is concluded that accent paradigm (b) was the “default” accent paradigm for Germanic loanwords when they were adapted to the Proto-Slavic phonological system, as opposed to all earlier theories, which assume that Germanic loanwords regularly joined accent paradigm (a). The only loanwords that did not generally take accent paradigm (b) are loanwords with a long vowel in a stressed heavy syllable, which under certain conditions discussed in the dissertation adopted accent paradigm (a). Show less
The study explores the history of the language of a manuscript known as Tönnies Fonne’s Russian-German Phrasebook (Pskov 1607). The phrasebook is not, as many scholars have assumed, the result of... Show moreThe study explores the history of the language of a manuscript known as Tönnies Fonne’s Russian-German Phrasebook (Pskov 1607). The phrasebook is not, as many scholars have assumed, the result of the efforts of a 19-year-old German merchant, who came to Russia to learn the language and who recorded the everyday vernacular in the town of Pskov from the mouths of his informants. Nor is it, as others claim, a mere compilation by him of existing material. Instead, the phrasebook must be regarded as the product of a copying, innovative, meticulous, German-speaking, professional scribe who was acutely aware of regional, stylistic and other differences and nuances in the Russian language around him, and who wanted to deliver an up-to-date phrasebook firmly rooted in an established tradition. Show less
